Your Digestive System
Like a long, winding tube, the digestive system carries food through your body, sending nutrients to the bloodstream and waste products through the colon (large intestine) to be eliminated. Let's take a quick tour and see how it works.
- The digestive process begins in your mouth. Your teeth and saliva break up the food into small pieces, allowing it to go through the esophagus into the stomach.
- The stomach breaks down the food into smaller pieces, preparing entry into the small intestine.
- After leaving the stomach, the food passes into the small intestine. Here the nutrients from the food are further broken down and absorbed into the bloodstream. By the time the food passes through the small intestine and reaches the colon, mainly water and waste products remain.
- Now the colon begins the process of moving the waste to the rectum. During this time, it absorbs excess water from the waste. Under normal conditions, it is amazingly efficient: For every 10 quarts entering the colon, approximately 9.9 quarts are reabsorbed before reaching the rectum.
- Sometimes the colon's natural contractions or rhythms are disturbed and the waste materials move too slowly or rapidly. Stress, medication, pregnancy, illness, resisting the urge to defecate, lack of exercise, and inadequate fiber or fluid intake are all potential disruptions to the colon's function. If transit is slowed, waste hardens and is not passed in a timely fashion to the rectum, resulting in constipation. If transit is too fast, not enough liquid is absorbed, resulting in diarrhea.
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